It is recognized that bacteria and viruses can be transmitted through use of a telephone receiver and the transmission is particularly evident with respect to public telephones. Various attempts have been made in the past to sanitize a telephone but none have met with commercial success. For example, it has been proposed to mount a roll of sanitized paper adjacent the mouthpiece of a pay telephone and roll out a section of the paper over the mouthpiece when the telephone is in use.
It is also been proposed in the past to attach a sanitized shield of paper or fabric to the mouthpiece of the receiver, or to subject the receiver to ultraviolet light to sanitize the mouthpiece and earpiece. However, these proposals have been difficult to implement, or require a modification of the existing telephone, or require a source of electrical energy not available at public pay telephones.